NTDTV : French Police Accused of Roughly Evicting Protesting Immigrants.
_ A video is causing uproar in France. It shows police dragging away women of African origin. The women were demonstrating against their eviction from a block of flats. In the video, one can see a mother being dragged on the floor with her baby on her back. In another scene, a pregnant woman is lying apparently unconscious on the ground.

The video was shot on July 21 and was published by the website Mediapart.fr. It had almost 500 thousand hits by Sunday. After the video was released, police authorities issued a statement. The statement says police had used normal force in this kind of situation. It adds that policemen could not see the child attached on the back of his mother when she was pulled away.

Jean-Baptiste Eyraud, Spokesman for«The Right to a Roof» : «When I saw those pictures I must say I was shocked. I didn’t think such a level of brutality was possible. To launch against babies and pregnant women it’s violent.» Jean-Baptiste Eyraud is the spokesman of an association that helps immigrants find accommodation. He was present on the day but was arrested before the police intervention.

Jean-Baptiste Eyraud, Spokesman for «The Right to a Roof» : «We think there should be an investigation to understand how this happened. The explanations by the local authorities are not satisfying when they say they were warned and they didn’t leave, the mother lied down on her baby, that’s absurd, the baby fell off his mother’s back because she was dragged on the floor and that’s it. So we need sanctions to be taken. Otherwise we can suppose that the police will continue brutal interventions.»

Eyraud added, «We are very worried because we feel a climate of repression settling, a brutal and violent one, which will result in those images we see now but maybe others too.»

The families were expelled in early July this year. They have set up camp in front of the flats. According to Eyraud, the baby in the video is doing well but is still under medical observation.

CNN International : Police filmed dragging women and babies during protest.
_ London, England (CNN) — A video has emerged showing French police evicting African immigrants with babies and children during a housing protest in a Paris suburb. Police arrived in the north-east Parisian suburb of La Courneuve last Wednesday and asked a group of about 60 mostly women and children to move, said Michael Hajdenberg, a journalist with the French media organization Mediapart.

The group had been living in the street since being evicted from their council homes on July 8 to make way for a new housing project, he said. When the group failed to respond to the request, Hajdenberg said police officers forcibly removed them. Authorities had offered to accommodate them for a short period in hotels, but Hajdenberg said the immigrants wanted more of a long-term guarantee of places to live.

The video shows police dragging away women with babies and young children. In one scene a woman with a baby wrapped to her back is dragged along the pavement while screaming and shouting. Another scene shows what appears to be a pregnant woman lying on her back on the street. Police can also be seen carrying women away while children and babies are screaming.

The immigrants are mostly from the Ivory Coast, said Michael Hoare, a spokesman for the campaign group Right to Housing. “Most of them have been in France for between 3 to 10 years. Some of them have papers, some of them don’t. They have submitted demands to be legalized,” Hoare told CNN.

Hoare said that on the day of the incident, 21 July, police had evicted journalists from the vicinity but that a member of DAL, a French rights group, had managed to film the scenes. The arrested protesters were released later the same day and have since accepted short-term hotel accommodation, Hoare said. “Because the experience was so traumatic they have ended up accepting the offer to go into the hotel and there are meetings going on about their future,” he said.

Commissioner Christian Lambert from the Police Commissioner’s office of the town Bobigny said in a written statement: “An eviction is never a(n) simple procedure when there is resistance involved on behalf of those being evicted.”

Regarding the scene in which a mother is dragged with her child on her back, the statement read: “The officers were not able to dislodge her by pulling on her arms because her arms were linked with people on both sides. Therefore they moved her by pulling on her legs. Within a meter or so the baby is dislodged and become apparent to another officer who immediately picks it up.” The statement added: “The situation of the evicted squatters is currently being examined to see if they can be re-housed depending on different criteria.”